advertising

Being the millennials that we are, we cannot imagine our lives without smartphones anymore. The time has come to shed some light on the last form of marketing on this blog and that is- mobile marketing.

Mobile marketing is essentially a subtype of marketing that provides smartphone or tablet users with interactive messages tailored to one’s location or consumption situation. (George E. Belch, 2012) Thanks to the fast-growing popularity of personal mobile devices, marketers can utilize this method to reach their customers more efficiently and effectively. Some of the techniques associated with mobile marketing are SMS and MMS marketing, app-based marketing, push notifications, in-game marketing, mobile web marketing and QR codes. A couple of these techniques are going to be explained further.

SMS marketing, or direct text marketing, is when companies send text messages, which contain promotions of sales and discounts, to their clientele. Link Since approximately 91% of mobile users worldwide are within an arm’s reach of their device and 90% of texts get read within three minutes, SMS marketing has become a legitimate method to reach the consumer. Link

MMS marketing is similar to SMS, as we all know, but instead of text messages you receive a timed slideshow of images, text, audio and video. Link MMS messages that use rich media are even more successful, because, as they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. Therefore, we don’t see why MMS marketing can’t be one of the most optimal ways to get your message across to your target group.

App-based marketing essentially comes down to advertising through apps that take up to 80% of our mobile time. Link This field is extremely competitive (more than 500 apps are released each day Link) and it is highly important to get noticed from the start. Therefore, marketers need a clear marketing strategy in order for this method of advertising to be fruitful. The easiest and fastest way to include ads in your app is to get a Google Admob account that helps advertisers create mobile ads that appear within third-party mobile apps. Link

Push notifications would not even be in this list if it weren’t for mobile apps. They are the little messages that pop up at the top of your screen and definitely represent a powerful tool for a marketer. Apparently, push notifications have an opening ratio of 40% to 60%, however, due to the lack of knowledge, they are not used as often as they should be. Link

Marketing specialists say that it is no longer a question of whether to use mobile marketing. It is rather a requirement for every firm that wishes to be successful. Statistics show that 82% of adults in the world have mobile devices now. Link It is a huge market with great potential. Advertising through text and MMS is quick, cannot get lost and is not subject to spam filters like e-mails. Link Compared to apps, every phone owner has a texting option. It seems that many marketers are still not convinced with direct text marketing, even though common sense suggests that a text will get more attention than another massive email. Link As for apps, the market is estimated to be worth $25 billion by 2015, so if done correctly, this method is definitely the path to success. Link

Even though it is all nice and good on paper, people still receive unsolicited promotional messages that can become very annoying. Also, security and privacy is something marketers should keep in mind.

If we talk about successful campaigns, we have to mention the QR codes. These are 2D images that a person can scan with his phone in order to visit the company’s webpage. QR codes are often aligned with mobile gamification and have an element of mystery to them, since users who scan them don’t always know exactly which rabbit hole they’re jumping down. Link However, in the case of Diesel’s QR code campaign, everything is definitely not about gaming.

To wrap it up, so far mobile marketing has been delivering amazing results. They say that somewhat 90% of your mobile target group will not only browse and search, but take action. Link The important thing to remember is to get creative with it to the best of your abilities, involve other platforms and techniques and your actions will shortly lead to success.

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If we talk about email marketing, most people immediately think about spam. But frankly speaking, email marketing can be more than that. It is generally defined as a way for companies to interact with actual or potential customers via email letters that include a link to their retail store or homepage. This implies different techniques, like sending newsletters, informational emails or promotional emails. This can happen in both B2B and B2C scenarios.

Promotional emails have the main goal of making the recipient to take some action- usually around a new product, service, event, or special deal. As effective email marketing strategies go, these emails usually don’t have a lot of content associated with them. They focus on selling points and persuasion verbiage. Link

A good example of that is the “Agoda” promotional email of their recent deals.

Another type of email marketing is sending newsletter emails. Usually, those are sent out once per month and often include several pieces of content that one has already published within the past month. Content for newsletters can include blog articles, videos, or other types of media. Link

Education.com membership newsletter is a good example of how a newsletter can look like.

The third type is the informational email. Informational emails are short and don’t usually require the recipient to take a lot of action. In fact, sometimes the email’s subject line alone might communicate everything that is needed. Examples of informational emails are meeting reminders, webinar invites or an offer to check out a particular post on one of your social media platforms. Link

Furthermore those techniques present many advantages:

1) Smartphone friendly

Thanks to the smartphone trend, the popularity of mobile emailing has drastically increased. Every tablet and smartphone will automatically give you easy access to your emails.

2) Sent at appropriate time

Emails can be sent at most appropriate time to reach different customers according to the time zones they live in.

3) Flexible and affordable

Emails do not require financial investments, nor big effort to create and send to actual or potential customers.

4) Builds up customer relationship

Each email can analyze customers’ behavior by the most important data related to marketing, including open rate, click-through rate and unsubscribe rate, which help you learn what works and what needs adjustment. Link With simply sending an email, one can sum up the person’s details, like age, gender, interests, social profiles, etc.

If we talk about advantages, disadvantages will come up as well.

1) Reliability

It is common for people to receive several emails per day from different companies. It often happens that many people delete emails before they even read them. Using a bulk emailing program means your letter could get caught in the recipient’s spam folder and they may never see it. Link

2) Reputation

Some people do not appreciate having their inbox filled with unsolicited marketing emails. Using mass emailing could make customers consider your company less reputable. Link

But one of the most important disadvantages for companies not to use email marketing is the fact that many people think of it as “old fashioned”.

Nonetheless, research shows that email sending is still the leading and most effective promotional tool for e-marketing. Link

Statistics show that 91% of people check their email on a daily basis. 33% of email recipients open emails based on the subject line alone.

Email marketing as a channel was the third overall lead generation source for marketers in 2013, producing 13% of all leads.

37% of interviewed people said that more than 20% of their inbox comes from marketers, and 53% said they’re happy with the number of promotional emails they get. Link

To conclude, email marketing is still one of the most popular techniques to communicate with target customers and build up relationships. With the advantage of flexibility, effectiveness and efficiency, this technique can successfully help a company achieve their marketing goals.

Life has become fast and busy. People are no longer keen on spending time reading newspapers or watching TV commercials. They have become more web-dependent and that’s when video marketing became the latest trend.

Video Marketing is the practice of creating a promotional video for a product or service and uploading it on the Internet. Video marketers rely less on words and more on creating a “buzz” around their product that will prompt viewers to act in a certain way. Link If used properly, it can be a highly effective tool for creating awareness of your brand and strengthening your business.

Numerous studies show that nowadays half of all companies are making an active use of this technique for promoting their businesses and satisfying customers’ information and entertainment needs. According to Cisco, by 2017, video will account for 69% of all consumer traffic, leaving behind Facebook and Twitter. Link

However, creating a strong video content is not always an easy job. It requires a way different approach than, let’s say, writing a blog post. The main goal of video creation is to catch the viewer’s attention in the first 5 seconds approximately. If it is not achieved, there is a high chance that a viewer will close the video tab without getting the message delivered! There is a variety of tools for composing videos: YouTube Editor, Camtasia, Animoto, Stoome, GoAnimate, Magisto, Sellamations etc. The following is a description of the mostly used once.

YouTube Editor – allows you to create a video by combining different videos and pictures and by adding music and effects. The main advantage of this technique is that it is quick to learn and easy to use. Video editing on YouTube is very basic, lacking any complex editing features. Link Besides, it is absolutely free of charge. However, due to this software’s simplicity and limited possibilities, it cannot be suitable for more complex projects.

GoAnimate – is the quickest, simplest, and most cost-effective solution for producing and sharing a professional-looking animated video. It provides characters, actions, backgrounds, props, music tracks and sound effects. Link It is free and does not require any artistic abilities. GoAnimate also gives companies a new, fun way for their fans to interact with their brands. Link

The likelihood of users getting annoyed every time a video pops up when visiting a website

The longer the video, the higher the risk to fail (anything over 1 minute risks being doomed to fail) Link

One of the best examples of unforgettable advertising campaigns is “Real Beauty Sketches” by Dove. This video was based on Dove’s main concept – emphasizing women’s natural beauty. It is heartwarming, emotional, touching… and that’s how it managed to become viral. Have a look!

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As we already mentioned in the previous post on Online Advertising Link, Social Media Advertising is a very important tool in the constantly growing and expanding world of Online Marketing. For us, the millennials, it is not a secret that our lives pretty much revolve around social media platforms. We use them every day, several times per day even, which is exactly why the main focus of this blog is placed on this topic.

Social Media Advertising or Social Networking Advertising is a form of Online Advertising where companies, individuals and organizations use social media platforms to advertise their products or services online in different kinds of ways. Furthermore, marketers use these platforms to analyze behaviors, needs and preferences that consequently help them reach their target audience more effectively.
Social media in general can be described as computer-mediated tools that offer people the ability to share and create their opinions, ideas and information with other users in virtual communities and networks Link.

These communication channels are dependent on community-based input, interactions, content-sharing and collaborations. Blogging, social networking, and social bookmarking are also among the different types of said media Link.

Social media platforms like these ones provide marketers with information through users’ “Likes” and “Dislikes”. Thanks to them, businesses can better understand their target audience and market.

Different ways of advertising products or services to consumers can be enabled by techniques like COBRAs and eWOM Link.

Consumer’s online brand related activities (COBRAs) is when products or services of brands are shown, thus advertising those websites through the consumers. For instance, when you buy a new jacket from Zara and post a picture of it on your Instagram or Facebook page. Quite frankly speaking, it`s free advertising for the company.

Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) is when the company’s product or service is promoted through C2C interactions on different social media platforms. This, for example, can occur on one hand through blogs where people rate products or on the other hand through websites, such as “airbnb” or “tripadvisor”. People that stayed in a certain hotel during their last vacation can rate the accommodation, service etc. and moreover, upload pictures as evidence. Picture source

Despite all the attractions, there is also a lot of critique regarding this form of advertising. Many skeptics doubt the justification and the economic benefit of Social Media Advertising. They ask whether social media marketers make money while killing communities and helping people become more and more distant. People have less real conversations with each other; nobody bothers to be friends in real life; dating already changed so much, that most people are unable to meet anyone offline. Moreover, many critics say that people post cruel things on these platforms to gossip around or bully others. Platforms for conversations and interactions on a respectful and professional level are becoming rarer each day.
Furthermore, others say that some companies and organizations make use of people’s openness and willingness to share to get the information they need. Based on this, the privacy of users has become of major concern, especially in regards to teens and young adults.

But in the end of the day, it should be stated that social media and, more precisely, Social Media Advertising is considered an important tool in the world of Online Advertising. Although the benefit of it is really tough to measure, it has to be clarified that IT IS measurable and IT DOES have an economic benefit for companies.
Social Media Advertising, for instance, is not only a very cheap or even free tool to promote the company and its products, but also a more efficient and engaging way to analyze customer behavior and react to feedback Link.
However, before these tools of advertisement can be used properly, companies have to analyze how to measure them in order to understand how they can benefit the business.

To conclude, Social Media Advertising is not only cheap, but more importantly: interactive, relevant to modern society, and measurable.

We, as an Online Advertising agency, have to admit that despite the negative implications, Social Media Advertising is the new way of marketing.

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We wouldn’t be an advertising agency focused on millennials, if we haven’t started out with the basics, which is of course- Online Advertising, or Online Marketing.

Online advertising is a form of marketing where companies use the Internet to reach their target audiences and deliver their promotional messages through increasing traffic on their websites. Link There are many sub-branches of this constantly growing and expanding form of advertising, which include E-mail marketing, Social Media Marketing, Mobile and Video marketing and all of them have sub-techniques as well, most of which will be covered in the upcoming blog posts. Link

Even though Online Advertising may be a small fraction of the Online Marketing tree and such growing trends as Social Media Marketing are stealing the spotlight, it doesn’t mean that companies should disregard this form of advertising completely.

Some examples of online advertising include banner ads, search engine results pages, social networking ads and email spam, which will be now explained.Link

Banner advertising holds the definition in its name. It is an image-based graphic display that spreads across a website page you’re on and invites you to click on it and get transferred to the company’s official website.

The purpose of this method is to catch people’s attention and it is proven to be a popular form of website advertising. Link

Social networking (or media) advertising is an offspring to initial online advertising and is the main focus for us, the millennials. It is essentially a form of advertising focused more on reaching the target audience through the use of social media websites, such as the very well-known Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and many more.

Nowadays, companies take advantage of the information people voluntarily post on their personal profiles, indicating interests and preferences. It is a very efficient and cost-effective way to reach your target audience. Picture source

Email spam targets individual users with direct but unsolicited email messages sent in bulk from a concealed email address. Link Email spam lists are often created by scanning Usenet postings, stealing Internet mailing lists, or searching the Web for addresses. Link If you genuinely want to start an email marketing campaign, email service providers will use a series of filters and data associations to determine if your message is spam or not. Link Picture source

It has become obvious that the Internet is taking over the traditional media outlets. Which is why, there are several reasons for marketers to use Online Advertising:

However, Online Advertising does not come without flaws. If you ask an average person’s opinion on online ads, he would most probably say that they’re annoying, distracting and one should definitely use an Ad blocker for his browser. An important aspect of choosing the Internet over television is that people want to filter their content. They browse for a specific reason, therefore seeing something that they were not looking for, could be perceived as unwanted and intrusive even.

If we talk about “recent”, we think creative video content, maybe photography, and of course the possibility of sharing it with your friends through social media. Since online advertising is very much a general term, specific examples of successful marketing campaigns will be discussed in the future posts.

It is no longer a question whether one should advertise online. It is rather a question of which forms of online advertising to use in order to reach your clients and spread awareness of your business. When used correctly, online advertising can be a great outlet for your creativity that will lead to higher traffic, better presence on the market and consequentially, increased profit.

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In a nutshell

A group of creative generation-Y business majors offering full-service digital advertising with an aim to consult your business on main Online Marketing trends.
Part of the IBS Groningen Digital Agency Project

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Disclaimer: Read carefully

MILLENNIAL ADS is a mock-up advertising agency.
It was created as an Online Marketing university project, also known as the “The IBS Groningen Digital Agency Project" (IBSGDAP).
The Befrienders Worldwide advertising campaign is also a MOCK UP academic exercise. Everything written about it was NOT executed in real life